Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies Helping People With Psychiatric Disabilities Get Employed: How Far Have We Come? How Far Do We Have to Go?

Case Studies of Promising Practices in Vocational Rehabilitation

The Vocational Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (VR-RRTC.org) based at the Institute for
Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston partnered with national content
experts to identify promising VR employment practices serving people with intellectual and/or
developmental disabilities (IDD). The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
(NIDRR), the funding agency, requested an emphasis on identifying promising practices for people with
mental illnesses and people with intellectual disabilities/developmental disabilities, and to identify
promising practices related to order of selection and the designation of most significant disability. This
report provides a summary of four promising VR employment practices for persons with IDD. The study
included a nationwide call for nominations through extensive outreach using a variety of channels and
venues, including (but not limited to) direct contact with VR agencies, Technical Assistance and Continuing
Education (TACE) Centers, the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR), the
Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), and NIDRR. The VR RRTC formed a Delphi expert panel to
review and rate all nominated practices using a systematic, multi-step procedure to evaluate nominations.

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